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EDMONTON - Longtime Conservative Randy Ferguson tore up his party card last fall and mailed it to the prime minister after the Harper government nixed Edmonton’s bid for Expo 2017.

For Ferguson, the federal decision was a double whammy — a lost opportunity to showcase the city and a clear signal of a bigger problem: that no one is standing up for Edmonton in Ottawa.

“We have do not have a strong voice in Ottawa,” said Ferguson, a prominent housing developer. “We haven’t had one since Anne McLellan left politics.” (McLellan, who represented Edmonton Centre from 1993 to 2006, was deputy prime minister in Paul Martin’s Liberal government.)

In a campaign stop in Edmonton Saturday, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff picked up this theme, accusing the federal Tories of taking Edmonton for granted with their failure to support the Expo bid. “They just basically stiffed Edmonton,” he said.

Ferguson, a volunteer on the Expo bid committee, was ready to work to unseat Edmonton-Spruce Grove MP Rona Ambrose, the Conservative party’s powerful regional political chief and minister of public works. But in the end, he didn’t like the New Democrats or Liberals. So now he’s politically adrift.

The frustration over the lost Expo bid won’t be heard on every door step, said Ferguson. But it should be. “We are being taken for granted. “

Opposition candidates say they are picking up that sentiment on the campaign trail, too. In a city where seven of eight seats are Tory blue, does Edmonton have the voice it deserves in Ottawa?

Longtime Tory MP Laurie Hawn, running in Edmonton Centre, is proud of the way the Conservative team stands up for Edmonton. Opposition candidates are just “playing politics” by suggesting otherwise, he said.

Local Conservative MPs fought hard for Expo 2017 in caucus, but in the end, the cost was too high and government had to make a fiscally prudent decision, said Hawn, adding he’s only heard about Expo three times at the door.

“I understand the disappointment, but I could not fault the logic of the decision. Now opposition politicians are jumping on this for political gain,” said Hawn, adding that the city has received $350 million in stimulus spending.

Mary MacDonald, the Liberal candidate running against Hawn, said she’s getting a different message.

“Stephen Harper arrives in Beaumont and says, ‘Paint the province blue,’ but he doesn’t come into our city. It’s being taken for granted,” said MacDonald, referring to Harper’s early campaign visit to Beaumont, just south of Edmonton.

Voters also remember when the Calgary Stampede got $5 million from the Marquee Tourism fund the year Edmonton’s folk festival got nothing. Grants to Edmonton’s Indy, Fringe Festival and Grey Cup totalled about $1.6 million over two years.

Mayor Stephen Mandel said he’s staying out of partisan issues, but he’s still “aggravated” by the federal decision to turn down the Expo bid after encouraging the city to apply.

Local MPs did their jobs by lobbying for the city’s Expo bid, he said. The problem is, Edmonton doesn’t have the clout at the senior level with Ambrose.

Will Expo 2017 make a difference in the election? “I doubt it,” said the mayor.

The Tories tend to win with massive majorities. In fact, Ambrose herself took her seat with the biggest plurality in the city, 29,775 votes ahead of her nearest rival.

Shortly after the Expo bid died, Ambrose announced $100 million for the north LRT line, Mandel noted, and in 2009, $100 million of federal money went into Anthony Henday Drive.

Ambrose, who was minister of public works before the writ dropped, said Edmonton has plenty of clout. She has held eight different cabinet posts and worked closely with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and finance minister Jim Flaherty, especially on oilsands issues.

In Edmonton, the MPs work as a team, she said, noting that other local MPs sit on parliamentary committees.

Conservative James Rajotte, chairman of the powerful finance committee, said the Liberals are just playing old-style politics in which “politicians have to bring home the bacon.” Unlike government MPs, opposition candidates can promise any kind of spending “because they don’t have to balance the budget.”

Edmonton gets plenty of largesse on its own merits, he added, including the four Canada research chairs at the University of Alberta, as well as lots of money for research infrastructure.

Besides, Conservative candidates can’t take their Edmonton seats for granted because city voters do change their minds. They sent four Liberals in 1993, he noted. New Democrat Linda Duncan in Edmonton-Strathcona was the sole opposition voice in Edmonton (and Alberta) heading into the election.

Lewis Cardinal, running for the New Democrats in Edmonton Centre, says a closer look at the figures shows the Conservative support is not as deep here as the seven blue seats suggests.

Hawn, for instance, won in 2008 with a margin of 9,975 votes ahead of the Liberal candidate, garnering 49 per cent of the popular vote. But only half of the eligible voters turned out, So what will happen if 10,000 Liberal voters who stayed home in 2008 come out to vote?

Edmonton East is also a riding where votes against Conservative Peter Goldring equalled those for him. But he won with an impressive 8,000 because the anti-Conservative vote was split three ways.

New Democrat Ray Martin, running against Goldring, looks at it this way. “Right now the Tories think Edmonton will vote for them no matter what they do. Imagine if there were three opposition voices.”

Carman McNary, a downtown lawyer, an active member of the business community and an Expo booster, said years of Edmonton’s lopsided voting means opposition parties don’t put on a serious campaign here either. As a result, Edmonton voters don’t get a great choice.

“All the parties take the outcome in Edmonton for granted. If not, all parties would have more thoughtful policies for developing the oilsands, “ said McNary.

Meanwhile, Randy Ferguson is not sure whether he’ll bother voting this time around.

For more on federal election campaign, including data on how the ridings voted in 2008 and audio of several local candidates speaking to the Journal editorial board, go to edmontonjournal.com/decisioncanada

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